Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mhluongo 3409 days ago
Erm, targeted at? You mean he would have, what, written it in Chinese?

Note he said most businesses are looking for Segwit activation + a hard fork blocksize increase (ours included). The "Chinese miners" have expressed that desire as well. Segwit is stalling because it's not what the market is asking for.
2 comments
nadaviv 3409 days ago
SegWit is supported by over 100 businesses and projects, and pretty much by ~everyone in the technical bitcoin community. It definitely is what the market is asking for.

https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/

link
mhluongo 3408 days ago
The market also includes miners. Do they appear excited to activate Segwit? As I understand it, they're waiting for a HF blocksize proposal to go with it.

Many of the businesses in that list that preparing for Segwit, but would still prefer that scenario as well (including many of those with the largest user bases).

Lastly, I'm in the technical bitcoin community. I agree most of us are in support of Segwit- just the show of hands at Satoshi Roundtable this year made that clear- but many of us would also like to see a block size increase, and the dev / miner impasse ended.

EDIT: Segwit signalling by miners is currently < 25%. https://blockchain.info/charts/bip-9-segwit

link
hnolable 3409 days ago
Segwit requires 95% of miners to activate. Currently about 75% of hash power is controlled by a group of chinese miners/pools. This is about the % of hashing power that is missing for Segwit to activate.
link
mhluongo 3409 days ago
Aware of how Segwit activation works, thanks. I'm speaking to the miners' motivations. They've been asking for a simple blocksize increase for quite some time. See the HK agreement if you don't get the politics.
link
hnolable 3409 days ago
Yes that's the issue here, the miners are playing politics by trying to flex their power. But no one is willing to play petty games. There's an obvious win for everyone sitting on the table ready to go. Political games will be ignored.
link
mhluongo 3409 days ago
The Core devs signed an agreement with these miners a year ago in Hong Kong, and the agreement was broken. Here are the consequences.

Clearly, politics won't be ignored- or Segwit would be on track for activation.

link
hnolable 3409 days ago
The part you're missing is that Bitcoin is totally fine if it never changed from how it is today. Anonymity will come via Tumblebit. Lightning network can already work even without segwit.

Segwit never getting activated may even be a good thing. It will show everyone that Bitcoin has crystalized and can never be changed via petty human emotion. This was always Bitcoin's true selling point and we may be about to demonstrate it.

So yes, politics can and will be ignored.

link
mhluongo 3408 days ago
Not at all. Like many in the space, I've had to consider and come to terms with the fact that this might be the best version of Bitcoin we have, forever.

But that's not politics being ignored- this is still a group of humans who couldn't come to an agreement after much politicking. That's politics being exhausted.

I do share your optimism that we have a system that can survive gridlock. It just won't fulfill much of its early promise.

link
stale2002 3409 days ago
The core developers have been playing political games for 2 years.

They've stopped all important changes that people are asking for, so now the shoe is on the other foot.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes. The core devs will get nothing unless they compromise.

link